If you saw us at the AIDS Walk and are visiting the webpage for the first time, please also check out our Facebook page and our Meetup.com site for info, discussion, pics, and events.  That means YOU, young lady from the nacent Secular Student Union at UPS!!!

“Philanthropist” is a word which, translated from Greek, literally means “lover of humanity.”  There is no caveat attached to this term that dictates that the lover of humanity must also believe in a god or gods, but it would seem that some religiously affiliated and atheist-wary folks ignore that lack of a religious requirement. Those people are certainly misguided. It is only the religious who feel that religion is needed in order for a person to be charitable.

Something which should be a point of pride for all atheists, especially when you’re being told by someone who knows little about you besides the fact that you’re not a believer — and often assumes the worst —  is that the two biggest charitable contributions in American history can both be attributed to non-believers: Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

But charity is not, and should not be, a tally of which side has done more, and the subsequent declaration of a winner. It shouldn’t be about who wins. The focus should be on helping people whether you’re religious or not. I have been told more than once by religious people who were disturbed by my atheism that, if there were no god fearing, good people on this earth there would be no hospitals, no orphanages, no clothing and food drives, no helping hand for anyone. In this bleak and truly apocalypic atheist future, everyone is looking out for themselves and the very idea of helping others is perverse and uncessesary. Help out your fellow man? Heh, who’s gonna make me?

The fact is that there are plenty of secular institutions already in existence that provide every kind of charitable resource you could imagine — and they provide these things without the common proselytization-in-exchange-for-help attitude which is often found at religiously affiliated institutions and events.

I remember specifically helping an older woman whose husband had died. A big group of us were there cleaning her house and fixing up her yard. I was helping the woman sort through clothes and she started talking about how wonderful the Catholic organization was that had set up the work we doing and by proxy, how wonderful we all were. I thanked her, and I didn’t correct her assumption that we were all Catholics doing good Catholic work because I felt that the work we were doing was important, not the details of who was doing it to be nice and who was doing it because of god. However, I realized that in many cases, people assume charity work is being done in the name of a “holy” organization.

The only way I can see to change the public perception of atheists and to help change the assumptions being made about charitable work is for atheists to get involved with their communities as atheists so that we can show by example that we are upstanding citizens interested in philanthropy in it’s purest form.

Below is a list of secular charities and aid-based organizations which would be worth looking into if you are looking to donate some time or money to your fellow human beings. This is by no means a complete list and does not include many local organizations which are always looking for volunteers. Remember, while donating money is always appreciated and needed, what a lot of charities need even more is your time and physical involvement. If we all tried to get involved or if those of us who can’t get involved were willing to support those who are even a little bit, we could do a lot to change the commonly-held and entirely unfair position that atheists are selfish, mean people who don’t have the capacity for compassion that religious folks have. It’s not at all fair, but it’s up to us to prove them wrong. Keep reading for a list of charities.

DonorsChoose.org is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack.

Kiva.org lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is a leading science-based non-profit working for a healthy environment and safer world.

The American Red Cross, a humanitarian organization led by volunteers, provides relief to victims of disasters and help people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. The USA’s premier emergency response organization, over 91% of Red Cross spending is on charitable services.

The mission of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  is to preserve all of constitutional protections and guarantees relating to First Amendment rights, including the freedom to practice religion and the freedom not to have religion rammed down our throats, equal protection, due process, and right to privacy.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a “first call for children” and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families. UNICEF provides emergency and disaster relief.

Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in nearly 70 countries.

Amnesty International’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. In pursuit of this vision, AI’s mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.

Oxfam International is a confederation of 12 organizations working together with over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty, suffering and injustice. The Oxfams operate in over 100 countries worldwide working with local partners to alleviate poverty and injustice.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the diversity of life on Earth. An environmental group that protects natural habitats and the wildlife within them. Focuses on “science-based” initiatives.

Population Connection is the national grassroots population organization that educates young people and advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth’s resources. Works against faith-based policies that are supported by the Religious Right.

DefCon: Campaign to Defend the Constitution is an online grassroots movement combating the growing power of the religious right. It includes a blog on religious freedom issues, action alerts, and in-depth articles on scientific, religious, and legal issues of the day.

The SEED foundation is a national nonprofit that establishes urban public boarding schools to prepare students from underserved communities for success in college.

Project Peanut Butter is a therapeutic feeding program for malnourished children in Malawi and Sierra Leone, on the continent of Africa. It was founded by Professor Mark Manary, M.D., a pediatrician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatric medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.

When our freedoms in the networked world come under attack, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) is the first line of defense. With the expertise of lawyers, policy analysts, activists, and technologists, EFF achieves significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public. EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations.

Mercy corps exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities.

Seva‘s programs serve people who have been economically, politically, or otherwise marginalized. They change their program’s approach to relate to culture and circumstances, reaching out in different ways to nomads in Tibet, women in Tanzania, and indigenous Mayans in Guatemala.

The International Peace Institute (IPI), formerly International Peace Academy, is an independent, international institution dedicated to promoting the prevention and settlement of armed conflict between and within states through policy research and development.

Chris in Texas writes:

Thank you all for doing this. You truly are compassionate

Chris, you are the compassionate one. Thanks for your generosity and making this happen!

Beth writes:

My friend and I wanted to join your team, but we’re not members of the Tacoma Atheists. Is that ok?

Beth, not only is it OK, but it’s great! We’d love to have you in our team! I’m ordering t-shirts, so be sure to get one so we can all show our atheist pride!

Last night the PCAF kicked of it’s September AIDS Walk at Shakabrah on 6th Ave., and five of us were there.

We heard from the organizers of the AIDS Walk, PCAF staff and the director, and we learned that AIDS has become the leading killer of young black women. That’s terrifying. The AIDS Walk is a wonderful way to help educate people about HIV/AIDS (which is 100% preventable!), provide services that are so critical to the + community, and show people where our hearts are: “Guided by reason, informed by science, motivated by compassion.”

I encourage all members to join our team and walk with us, and if you can’t, donate any amount — even as little as $20 will help us on our way to our goal of $1,000 and recognition at the AIDS walk of our group.

If every member donates only $10, we will exceed that goal! Join our team and make a donation here.

An interesting side note: One of the organizers remembered us from last year, and asked if he could come to a Meetup! That was so exciting!

Here are some background figures on HIV/AIDS in Pierce County:

1,741 people with HIV/AIDS have come to the Pierce County AIDS Foundation for services, and 638 persons are known to have died from complications related to AIDS as of July 31, 2007.  Pierce County has the second highest incidence of AIDS in the State, with 9% of the total number of cases in Washington.

AIDS in Pierce County is distinguished from the state as a whole by a clientele which is poorer, has a lower average educational level and contains a higher percentage of women, people of color, injection drug users, teenagers, and children.  Statistics provided by the Tacoma/Pierce County Health Department and the Washington State Department of Health find:

• 35% of the cases of HIV/AIDS in Pierce County are among people of color.  That figure is only 28% for the state as a whole.
• 18% of the people with AIDS in Pierce County report injecting drug use as the mode of transmission of HIV as opposed to only 9% statewide. 18% percent of the people with AIDS in Pierce County report heterosexual sex as the mode of transmission of HIV as opposed to only 10% statewide.
• 20% of all Pierce County AIDS cases are women, a number twice the statewide percentage of AIDS cases among women.
• Teens are more at risk for HIV in Pierce County. 24% of the cases of AIDS are among young people 20-29 years of age. Taking into account a potential ten-year period where HIV has not yet progressed to full blown AIDS, it is logical to assume that most of these were infected as teens. That figure is only 21% for the state and for the nation.

Recent statistics show these trends in the AIDS epidemic in Pierce County even more strongly than the cumulative cases. Among the 88 new clients served at PCAF in 2005, 39% are from communities of color, 22% are women, and 14% report drug use as the probable cause of transmission. Of the 478 clients served in 2005, 30% had mental health issues, 60% have both mental health and substance abuse problems, and 70% had incomes of less than $10,000 per year.

During 2005, 15% of our new clients were homeless at intake, and almost 25% of the 478 clients served were homeless, or at risk of homelessness during the course of the year.

About 20% of households cut back on giving to their churches when the economy started to sink last year, according to the Barna Group, which tracks religious statistics. The California-based organization found that overall donations decreased by 4% to 6%—about $3 billion to $5 billion. At the same time, churches are facing increasing demands from people in their communities for food and shelter. To make ends meet, church leaders are cutting staff and putting programs on hold.

The federal government has stepped in to help. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced that $100 million from the economic-recovery package will go to emergency food and shelter programs, including those run by religious organizations. Billions of dollars more have been set aside for education, neighborhood-stabilization programs, and affordable child care—all services offered by many churches and other places of worship.

Erm, no, apparently.

No, thank YOU!

Valerie Tarico, Ph.D. is a psychologist in Seattle, Washington.  She is the author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth, the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org, and the host of Christianity in the Public Square, Moral Politics Television, Seattle.

For years, atheists, agnostics, and other freethinkers have been saying that you don’t need a god to be good. Recently, they even tried to say it on the side of an Indiana bus. More and more, they are finding ways to show it.

Kiva.org is a matchmaking service. It pairs up desperately poor people who need loans with folks who are willing to take a chance on them. With as little as $25 in your hand, you can go to Kiva and help a farmer in Pakistan who wants a pair of goats, or a single mom in Peru who wants to invest in a new sewing machine for her home embroidery business, or a vendor in Sudan who sells corn flour and wants to increase her inventory. The borrowers request a specific amount through a local microcredit agency, often with a small group of community members who guarantee each others’ loans. When enough lenders choose them, meaning the full amount is available, they get the loan, invest it in their venture, and begin making payments on an eight month schedule.

On Monday, my 13-year-old daughter Marley bounced in the door from school and said, “Are you ready to go to Kiva?”  She and her older sister Brynn had emptied their banks — literally — and bought me a Kiva gift certificate for Mother’s Day. Marley inserted herself between me and my computer. She pulled up the site and began explaining her investment criteria: female (because females more often reinvest earnings in the family) no more than two kids (because they have a better chance to get ahead), and no beauty parlors (because that’s just dumb). She showed me a cooperative in Tajikistan and a grandmother in Mexico. But when I kept returning to Pakistan she assured me that I really could make my own choice. Except — was I going to put the whole $50 into one person?! She’d forgotten her final criterion: spread the wealth.

Last, but not least, Marley proudly showed me how to credit my gift to a Kiva lending team:  Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious. Does my daughter know me or what?

In an article I wrote a couple of months ago, Atheist Arrogance, I encouraged non-believers to counter stereotypes simply by being who they are. “Be out, be yourself.” In example, I mentioned a Seattle Atheists blood drive. So imagine my delight to find that the AASFSHN team — yes, the acronym is pathetic — topped Kiva’s list, with over 16,000 loans made. Not to be outdone, a group called Kiva Christians is hot on their heels. Is it a competition? Sure looks like it. But can you imagine something better to compete over?

Religious communities perform a valuable organizing function.  True, it can be used for harm — to organize a “Bibles for Afghanistan” crusade, or worse, a literal crusade. But religious communities also activate people to feed the hungry or protest against nuclear weapons. As no-nbelievers are becoming more open, they too are beginning to coalesce into moral communities that talk openly about deep values. My hope is that, freed from the constraints of dogma or the need to proselytize, these communities will be able to invest themselves in the simple process of doing good for goodness sake.

What does that mean? Primum non nocere (First, do no harm). The simple principle of harm avoidance is at the heart of humanity’s shared moral core. But so is proactively nurturing well-being. Healing harm. Creating delight and beauty and wonder. Loving. Truth-seeking. Practicing random acts of kindness. Our ancient traditions, both religious and secular, converge on a shared set of virtues and moral principles that are probably built into our bodies by our ancestral history. There is a lot we can learn from those traditions about how to be good with or without gods.  But, as Marley just reminded me, there is also a lot we can learn from our children. We offer them the insights of our ancestors, and our own, but they are the ones who, as Khalil Gibran put it, dwell in the house of tomorrow.

Are you familiar with www.Kiva.org ?  Through local micro-lending agencies, people in developing countries post loan requests—to buy a cow, a sewing machine, fruit to sell, etc.  Anyone can go to the site and choose people to lend to, in increments of $25.

Anyhow, the Atheist/Agnostic/Freethinker group has made more loans than any other on the site.  It might be an interesting project for your members to get involved in.

http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=94b

I’d say that’s a good idea!

Big Brothers/Big Sisters giving, Kiva, and the SeasonLess food drive. Not bad, folks!

Paid “friendship missionaries” on the University of Arizona campus scan for lonely foreign students, who get invitations to dinner with a side dish of salvation. Are the missionaries and their sponsors generous, predatory, or both?

Several studies (e.g. here and here) show that religious people give more dollars and volunteer hours to charity than do nonbelievers. Evangelical Christians have been trumpeting these findings: No matter what you may think about our exclusive offer of salvation, our religion is a social good.

As a former Evangelical I tend toward skepticism, especially when it comes to data that have been assembled and promoted by ideologues. And yet I’m inclined to suspect that these results tap something real. Sociologists have found that tribal identity increases altruism toward other members of the tribe (though at the expense of outsiders). In many ways, a religion functions as a tribe. Besides ordinary in-group/out-group effects, religions explicitly teach that we are made to serve something larger than ourselves. They encourage members to give of themselves to gods, co-religionists and others — in part by promising deferred compensation. But perhaps even more importantly, they provide a community and structure for doing so.

Let’s assume that religious people are more generous or altruistic. An interesting follow-up question is this:

Where is this generosity directed? Does it serve the cause of goodness? By a scientific definition of altruism, suicide bombing is an altruistic act supported by religious attendance. It is the individual sacrificing his life (and reproductive potential) in the service of another individual or the greater collective — in this case Allah, Islam, the Muslim brotherhood. But is it as a social good?

Within conservative Christianity, a tremendous amount of donated time and money is solicited for conversion activities: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Is religious recruiting a social good? On this, most evangelists and I would have opposite opinions, at least about Christian recruiting. (We might be more in agreement about the proselytizing done by Hare Krishnas or Scientologists.)  It is only fair to give evangelical missionaries credit for their intentions. If you truly believe the unsaved are going to be tortured eternally, then there is no greater good than to spend your life saving their souls. By comparison, nothing else matters. A missionary, operating on this premise, may experience herself as highly generous, because she is.

She also might protest that independent of afterlife benefits, accepting Jesus makes people happy in this life, here and now. This is true.  Sometimes. Jesus worship can fill people with deep joy. It can get alcoholics to stop drinking and abusers to stop abusing. It can save marriages.  But sometimes the opposite happens. (See thousands of testimonials at exChristian.net). Pentecostals point to happy African church-going children singing and dancing. A former Pentecostal might point to the African children who have been kicked out of their communities or killed because new converts to Pentecostalism saw them as witches and took their took their Bibles literally. The net here and now benefits of proselytizing are arguable.

A darker way to look at Christian “outreach” is as an example of how viral beliefs, sometimes called meme complexes, can exploit the human tendency toward altruism. What I mean is that a belief set can redirect altruistic do-gooder impulses away from activities that actually serve human well-being and onto activities that serve to replicate the belief set itself. When the Asian tsunami hit, a highly successful Seattle mega-church directed members to do three things: pray for people who were affected, give to Mars Hill Church, and give to the Mars Hill church-building work in India. Why not reverse this — pray for Mars Hill church, pray for our missionary work, and give money to the people who were affected? Churches that make suggestions like these are, on average shrinking. Churches that follow the Mars Hill model are growing.

Daniel Dennett in the first three pages of his book, Breaking the Spell, beautifully narrates how a similar redirection occurs in nature. An ant climbs to the top of a stem of grass and lingers there. Why? Not because it is adaptive for the ant. Rather, another organism has take charge of the ant’s brain and to reproduce it needs the ant to be eaten by a cow. When a person’s altruistic impulses are directed toward winning converts, it is valid to ask whether they are actually serving human well-being or simply serving a mind virus.

If we don’t count their recruiting activities, do Evangelical Christians actually give more than non-religious? Do they give more to things that we humans pretty much agree are social goods? Sorry, all you fellow secularists, thought the gap narrows the answer still appears to be yes. Think first about money given to churches. Besides outreach, church moneys fund what economists call “club goods“. Churches often do a wonderful job of providing and organizing members services: warm meals for kids with a sick parent, adventures for teenagers, housing for young adults, support during bereavement, even free counseling or legal services. And with regard to outsiders, even if food, medical care, or friendship is offered primarily as bait to set a fish hook, the food and medical care are real.

But even beyond the money given to churches, religious people appear to give more to ordinary charities than secular folks do. At least based on self report data, religious participation and religious giving are positively correlated with giving to nonreligious charities like educational institutions, social services, even blood banks. Although the gap gets smaller the harder you look at it, this appears to hold true for the 40ish percent of Americans who self-describe as Evangelical or born again as well as their more theologically open counterparts.

If this makes those of us who are freethinkers squirm a bit, perhaps it should.

You might protest that that charity should be only a way station on the road to justice, and that your energies are better spent working for structural change. Many secular folks and liberal people of faith believe this is true. I know I do. As a non-theist, I once sat on the nonprofit board of an organization called the Washington Association of Churches because their mission was my mission: Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. Like me, they sought solutions that went beyond charity.

But even if justice is the destination, those way stations are still needed. Most of us agree that both generosity and justice are virtues. We prefer to live in a world where both are in rich supply. Maybe, now that freethinkers are coming out of the closet it is time for us to begin thinking about how to create our own communities and structures that empower personal generosity. Since we don’t have to be a sales force with a promise of treasure laid up in Heaven, we are free to give without expecting something back except maybe a bit of good will.

Recently Seattle Atheists organized a blood drive for members. Now, that’s what I’m talking about.

[Ed. note: Not only do both Seattle Atheists and Tacoma Atheists have an ongoing food-drive in place, but Seattle Atheists has a bi-monthly blood drive, Christmas wrapping (of which 100% of the proceeds go directly to the Seattle Childrens Hospital), and a Day of Reason blood drive.]

As a locally operated agency, Northwest Harvest is uniquely suited to serve the diverse needs from county to county across Washington State.

Northwest Harvest respects the dignity of those we serve. We supply food for free to our partner food banks and meal programs throughout the state.

Together our partners provide half a million food services each month in their communities.

More than 50% of those we serve are children and the elderly—the populations most affected by a compromised diet. We know that nutrition matters, and we’re committed to providing the freshest, most beneficial food possible to our clients.

We rely on your donations. All of our food and funds come from individuals, businesses, foundations and other organizations, and 93 percent of our total budget goes to food distribution.

… our main responsibility is as a food distribution network for all of Washington. Our nearly 300 partner food banks and meal programs are independently-run and community-based. We use our contacts, buying power and over 40 years experience with issues of hunger to provide more food and better nutritional variety to partner programs, allowing them to focus more of their limited resources toward serving clients.

If you would like to drop off food, there are many drop sites throughout the Puget Sound.